I tried my best to fix Map10's technical holes but there are still slowdowns and at one point certain flying AI randomly decrease the FPS to single digit amount. This doesn't always happen however but I can't figure out why this happens. It's probably the AI being forced to seek the players and have serious difficulties doing so. Just kill things fast (by that point, you very easily can).

THANK YOU for finishing up G59! I will download the complete new package once you've uploaded it in the coming days (I will obviously download the latest EXU2 package first).

New commentary in the style of what I did before will be produced between now and the end of the summer.

Cheers!

Nali: Magic or Telekinesis

Waffnuffly wrote:It's tarydium-doped smoothies. Drunk by the player, I mean. The player is tripping balls. The whole game actually takes place in a large city and the player thinks he's on an alien world.

Addendum available. Final map, ending, updated Jigoku.u file. Put them in with the rest from the major Episode 3 package. Hope you enjoy! Play it for that one last map!

Some stats for Atropos:-Over 7k brushes-28k polys-62k nodes-47MB in size

I'm fairly sure there isn't any other SP map with that same MB size, it's #1 in my folder. There are MP maps that are bigger but unlike those, Atropos makes no use of myleveled content (I don't make use of mylevel content anymore since aaaaaages). The use of textures is definitely a reason, lighting and fog also bump up size massively if used in certain ways.The map really tries to replicate the Unreal 2 Drakk feel, the last arena has a conglomerate of special lit light actors so they'd light those matrix-style textures.The map once reached 64k nodes (I ended up crashing at times because it surpassed the limit). Generally, all the myths about crashes because of a high amount of nodes are false (they likely were back in 2000 though). Or it reaches the limit and crashes, or it rebuilds. HOWEVER if there are a lot of movers and the node amount is close to the limit, what happens is that the movers are not rendered in-game; movers indeed work differently from brushes, they do not really count toward the node count but are affected nonetheless.

I'm fairly sure there isn't any other SP map with that same MB size, it's #1 in my folder. There are MP maps that are bigger but unlike those, Atropos makes no use of myleveled content (I don't make use of mylevel content anymore since aaaaaages). The use of textures is definitely a reason, lighting and fog also bump up size massively if used in certain ways.The map really tries to replicate the Unreal 2 Drakk feel, the last arena has a conglomerate of special lit light actors so they'd light those matrix-style textures.The map once reached 64k nodes (I ended up crashing at times because it surpassed the limit). Generally, all the myths about crashes because of a high amount of nodes are false (they likely were back in 2000 though). Or it reaches the limit and crashes, or it rebuilds. HOWEVER if there are a lot of movers and the node amount is close to the limit, what happens is that the movers are not rendered in-game; movers indeed work differently from brushes, they do not really count toward the node count but are affected nonetheless.

Precious info, thanks for that as well!!

Nali: Magic or Telekinesis

Waffnuffly wrote:It's tarydium-doped smoothies. Drunk by the player, I mean. The player is tripping balls. The whole game actually takes place in a large city and the player thinks he's on an alien world.

So far it's been quite the experience, quite amazing to see what you can pull off with this 19 year old game and I'm running this with the hi-res textures and the HD skins mutator, which probably adds to the insanity.

As I’ve stated on Discord, G59 feels like the logical endpoint of UT mods. And with that said, I couldn’t think of any better conclusion than the one you gave to this campaign.Only two notable bugs however. Mekans Mercs are very passive and will more often let the player go rather than attacking. And the final boss, much like Morax’s second phase is very hesitant to attack; it keeps tweening it’s animations but never to the point where projectiles spawn. Everything else is in great condition.

I honestly love this campaign so much that I wish to archive it and attempt to port it if a major update of EXU2 were ever to roll out. But for now, I just wanna appreciate the fantastic work you have bought to us.

I hope whatever future plans you have in other professions are as successful as your work in Unreal was!

So far it's been quite the experience, quite amazing to see what you can pull off with this 19 year old game and I'm running this with the hi-res textures and the HD skins mutator, which probably adds to the insanity.

As far as I know, the HD skins mutator only affects all original Unreal Gold assets but not many of them are used in G59. I still use it anyway but it would be nice if some were updated.

As I promised, here's a list of tips (and unfixable bugs to watch out for) in each level. I have decided to put everything under spoilers. Not exactly needed but I do this because so more players can have a chance, especially EXU newcomers who want to play a new UT mappack.

EXU2-G59-00-Distopia

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Beams for first wave, projectiles for the second wave.

EXU2-G59-01-Limbo

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Do as the first unknown log says - a well-thrown Hellfire Flare matters a lot at the beginning of the map.

On Unreal difficulty, the hut valley is slightly different gameplay-wise, and requires the difficulty-exclusive PentaPower to pass through (a message highlights its presence).

For the four Armor glyphs - you just have to touch them to activate. One requires the translocator. It's better to pick the armor (a Demonlord's Vest - 3500 charge and exclusive to G59) before the boss battles.

The miniboss at the end of the map can be simply dispatched with the Piddledoper's tertiary fire, multiple times in a row.

For the boss triplet, you can spend two Clustershock Flares for each one and use the HyperFlakker's primary fire constantly. Don't use the HyperFlakker's secondary fire - grenades bounce off him. For the creatures they summon, most of them fly near those purple crystals; be sure to shoot those crystals with the PP's primary (and stay away as you do so).

The locked temple opens once you beat the boss.

EXU2-G59-02-Neonlights

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For those who don't know: damage from the Hellgun stacks on single targets until you hit them with another weapon. Hellgun is very useful in this level with a lot of enemies having tons of HP and capable of healing themselves throughout their attacks.

Of course, don't use Hellgun against Demon pawns - any creature that's distinctly painted gray with magma tattoos and shoot pentagrams or red things is a DEMON. The purple Gasbags that shoot streams of red orbs (they also appear in The Limbo on Unreal difficulty), called Agidynes, are Demons too.

Mechbags (the black Gasbags with glowing red eyes that release miniature versions on death) are exclusive to Unreal difficulty. They are not immune to Hell damage, and the Hellgun's stacking damage works wonders against them.

The yellow pawns (the Shit ones) are immune/healed by the ShitGun. The Bio pawns are immune/healed by corroded damage and the only way you can deal corroded damage is throughout BioHazardFlares. Both Shit/Bio pawns (I believe all?) can heal throughout their attacks.

Security Brutes are weak versus Shit damage, on the other hand.

Hellgun's secondary fire is a good way to get rid of groups of laser bots.

When you hear an alert sound followed by a vocal message, you know a Demon ambush is coming.

Be wary about the last set of elevators to the boss - the third one cannot be called back anymore in the arena, meaning that's a point of no-return.

HyperFlakker's primary is the only and real way to go against the boss. It's heavily hinted in the message next to the panel.

EXU2-G59-03-Tonatiuh

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The Clusterfucker has never appeared in the BI campaign, so chances you don't know how the weapon works. Primary fire shoots explosive bouncing orbs, secondary fire shoots lock-on rockets. The weapons drains ammo fast but the damage is absurd; it's very practical doing burstfiring because even that is enough to bring down basic EXU creatures.

Yes, that Gasbag in the storage area has a lot of health. Hellgun him to death.

The unknown log before the big valley more or less explains what you have to do for the big battle. You get all the items behind the three rocks before you start shooting anyone. Memorize also what the item stations give you (one gives ammo for some guns such as EAR and Hellgun, another gives you a basic set of armors/shields, the other fills to max the Clusterfucker) and especially their refill time.Lava Titans are not immune to the Hellgun, therefore it's the preferred weapon against them, and you can bother one at a time instead of them all (if you walk in the solar circlet area, all of them will attack you!).

The Backpack Missile is an item that when is active, shoots streams of lock-on rockets just like the Clusterfucker's secondary fire. It is extremely helpful in battle but it will eventually run out of charge. It is recommended to turn it on once Gasbags spawn (they don't appear on Easy). On Unreal difficulty, you'll be dealing with Warlords too, and those require priority due to their powerful attacks.

For the boss battle, you need to learn to NOT ignore enemies. The boss can spawn powerful creatures including Plasma Spinners and Lava Titans. If you have Fusion Flares, don't be afraid to use them, and never shut down your Backpack Missile if it's still a thing. Taking care of the Clusterfucker ammo is also a must. If the boss is chasing you and you have no way to escape, you might want him to melee you - he kicks you a bit far away, which could be potentially useful. Note that when the boss dies, you'll still have to kill the creatures he spawned.

The item machines do never shut down! Once you are done fighting, go get them! This is important.

There's a Verflucht Seed in the second lake, below the torch. Verflucht Seeds are exclusive to G59 and are the only Seeds you find alongside the Armor ones. They spawn Demonlord Vests, so use with extreme care.

The treasure hunt is optional but it gives you a rather strong Flare that you can also find in the next map - but the more you have of it, the better. As for the treasure hunt, consider these hints: top of one of the lamps in the first valley, solar circlet, dark desert corner behind the rock with the armor station, end of the pathway at the end of the level, behind the window inside the mini-outpost, first room of the level, underwater pipes in the first lake, touch a demon face.

EXU2-G59-04-Manitou

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MIND THIS BUG: DON'T GHOST. ULTRA HIGH ASS CHANCES TO CRASH GAME BECAUSE THE ENGINE HATES MESHENVIROMAP.

Pretty clear you don't have to use the HyperFlakker against obvious enemies. They also resist some of the Clusterfucker damage. HOWEVER, the Hyperflakker's grenades can damage them, and some of the Mercenaries can kill themselves in tight areas because of the exploded damagetype. Unfortunately I have no way to fix this since it's related to core EXU properties but it's on the most part a relief for the player when it comes to this level. However, don't try using the Hyper grenades by yourself as there will be a rather extreme lack of Hyper ammo that you may need in the successive levels.

On Unreal difficulty, you'll be dealing with Steel Queens replacing some of the Hyper enemies. Steel Queens shoot damaging explosive bouncing orbs, have a lot of health, and release on death tons of Steel Pupae that are resistant and deal massive melee damage. They are weak to the Shitgun but the weapon can only help you minimally. Hellgun works, secondary fire is great versus the Pupae. Stay far away and when things go awry, use Flares.

The flying robots here are immune to Hell damage.

The map is area-based, and a lot of these areas are filled of enemies. There are quite a lot of Fusion Flares, and you can use these to clear these areas as much as possible, so you can enter and finish the rest with regular weapons. This is the map where you learn that Flares must not be wasted.

For what's worth, the EAR is a much more safe weapon to use than the Clusterfucker against the Demon waves. Stick to the heavy weapons when it comes to the minibosses, though.

Be sure to not miss the storage area when you unlock it, there are useful items inside (as well as some enemies). It's a good thing exploring every area possible in this map.

The boss prefers to stay in his area most of the time but if he manages to go outside run the fuck away and bombard him with anything you got before he corners you. His personal troops can be dealt with a Megablast Flare (which also hurts the boss).

EXU2-G59-05-Void

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The Searchlight will run for a lot of time, so don't worry that much.

HyperFlakker's primary fire is your best friend here. Hellgun is fine too in specific situations. including the secondary fire. Reflexes are definitely required. Use the translocator if you need to retreat.

A lot of the enemies inside the facility use oddsofappearance, so prepare for random ambushes every time you restart the map.

The RFPC is available in this level. This is a super secret weapon in the BI campaign: primary fire shoots streams of plasma balls, the secondary fire shoots flaming orbs that do extremely high damage and hurt anything that comes near them. An extremely strong direct weapon that sucks ammo rapidly, and it's easy hurting yourself with it.

EXU2-G59-06-Elohim

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MIND THIS BUG: DON'T GHOST. ULTRA HIGH ASS CHANCES TO CRASH GAME BECAUSE THE ENGINE HATES FOG LIGHTS.

Hellgun damage stacking DOES NOT WORK against the Saints. However, Saints take bonus damage against Hell damage, therefore it's still an useful weapon against them.

This level is complex. You have two "worlds", each with its own enemies and items. You got to learn the layout, the item placements, learn not to underestimate ANYONE and be ready for any ambushes.The Saints can be ungodly strong, having a lot of HP and powerful projectiles. Golden Saints are strong enough that they require sometimes Flares to be taken down. RFPC and Clusterfucker are generally your weapons of choice here.One ambush in the dark world has a swarm of Squids. Kill them with the Hellgun's secondary fire.Overall, the objective of this level is to take a key tied to a Searchlight in the dark world. The location is the dark world version of the water pool room in the regular world (this is mentioned in a message and you can clearly see a glyph sign in-game). Once you have that key, you can open the door at the end of the regular world, where you fight a boss.

Flares are useful but what you don't want to waste is BioHazard ones. Useful for the boss.

The Saint Queen (aka PopeQueen) can activate for one time a trap in her area. When you fight her, stay away from those water vats - when you see storms of light orbs being shot from them, that means the trap has been activated and it's safe to go.

The Scanner of Elohim area in both worlds is optional but contain essential items. Both also contain special enemies - for the regular world, you use Flares; for the dark world, you stay away and shoot until it's dead.

For the boss, your main weapon is going to be the Piddledoper's tertiary fire. While various creatures including bosses are immune to Stuns, this one isn't. As explained by the message, you have to lure in one way or another the boss into one of the three trap rooms, make sure he gets in front of those blue water vats, use the PP's stun orbs multiple time toward him (this results in yourself damaged but that's a thing of this campaign where you have to sacrifice your armor/health to do what you need to do) and while he's stunned enough, go outside, throw in one or two BioHazard Flares and press the button to close the door. If done correctly, the boss HP's is gonna go down hard. On lower difficulties this can be done two times, on Unreal difficulty it'll take at least 3 times. The trap systems for each room do not re-activate instantly, it takes some minutes before they can be used again. You can tell something is ready by hearing a loud bell sound. Any sort of direct confrontation with the boss is not advised unless he's near death.The hardest part is getting the boss inside the trap rooms. Sadly the Unreal AI works only when it feels like, and the boss decides to stay outside and not getting in. You generally wait for the boss by hiding into those water vats but rarely you need to show yourself, or shoot him, so he changes idea and finally gets in.

EXU2-G59-07-Jrath

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The special enemy at the end kills you in one hit and is fast. Use the Tachyon beams until he's dead. Run backwards all the time.

EXU2-G59-08-Magatsu

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The Saints Gun aka the Heaven's Piercer, exclusive G59 weapon, is located in this level at the beginning. It'll be your main weapon here. Holds 600 ammo, primary fire shoots powerful and concise white orbs while the secondary fire, at heavy cost of ammo, shoots accurate energy beams that deal a lot of damage in a large radius (strong and costly, therefore saved for obvious situations). SaintsGun has no damage stacking but all the enemies in this level take bonus damage against it. Players can't also harm themselves with it, which is a huge bonus.The weapon is only available in this level, and as a super secret bonus in the following one.

The enemies in this level are exclusive to G59; each pawn type has its own gimmick. The fast Skaarj ones need to be looked out for as they can leap around the map and shoot you with homing projectiles. Clusterfucker's secondary fire here we go!

As you access the city, you'd want to clear it entirely, then start deactivating the power crystals but not all at once - kill always everyone that spawn and proceed to the next. The item stations take a lot of time to fill up, so mind this.

EXU2-G59-09-Abyss

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For the first area, just cross through the darker spots until you reach the exit bridge, then you can proceed freely. The creature that spawns is immune to the PP.

If you have trouble with the first battle, make sure to throw BioHazard Flares in a way the enemies can't exit through their spawning area.

Your equipment is rather limited once you reach the abyss area.

This map introduces two new exclusive weapons of G59, the Fusion Energy Melter and the Pillar Of Despair.The FEM is a RFPC replacement, holds 1000 ammo. It's basically the Fusion Flare as a weapon when it comes to the primary fire: shoots streams of homing green fusion projectiles and the secondary fire shoots fusion orbs at a rather moderate rate of fire. The weapon is costly but there's a lot of ammo packs around. Generally, if something seems to be too hard, then that's a situation where this weapon shines.The POD shoots beams of energy or bouncing red mines (respectively useful to kill strong enemies from afar and to kill things in small crowded areas). Laser beams do not harm the players and are capable of splash damage - if there are for example mass groups of Krall, beams can destroy them. Useful in the next map.

The SK6 also debuts here. It wasn't in BI but was in The Last Fortress. It works pretty much the same. You solely find mortar packs in G59 that give you 2 ammo each, and the weapon slot is 10.

This is true for Map 10 as well: Gatekeepers debut as "regular" enemies. The last thing you want is these things beginning attacking even once. Best way to kill one is to charge four SK6 mortars onto it. Maximum priority.

The first abyss boss regenerates a lot of HP once it goes down to 5k/4k, therefore you must deal a killing blow before that threshold is reached. This is usually done with a Tachyon beam. Otherwise, you can stun the creature with the PP when he is on those stone platforms (the ones raised above water level), press the respective trap button, and watch the thing being crushed (needs to be at a very low HP for this, though).

Note that in the abyss area, and in the vent shaft areas, gravity is decreased, therefore there's no fall damage. In the vent shaft area it also helps with the translocations, as the disc doesn't fall down quickly.

The secret weapon is super optional and the game hasn't been balanced after it.

EXU2-G59-10-Verflucht

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BUG NOTES: THERE ARE SLOWDOWNS IN THIS MAP. Crashes should be solved though but don't try to stay far away (really far away) and see the main area entirely.Some of the flying AIs also massively slow down the game - this happens in the final battle before the main castle. It's rare, just kill things fast.

Enemies in this level are tough and items can be quite scarce. Watch out at the Gatekeepers and at the Demon Guardian Behemoths.

For the EXTREME battle, you need always to have a PentaPower on, and get as much items as possible before the chaos starts. Because the main rule is to kill things before you are overwhelmed. The first enemy type is mostly dealt with EAR and FEM. Second enemy type is dealt with either the POD or the SK6, Tachyon also helps. The last enemy type is best dealt with the Tachyon.

EXU2-G59-11-Atropos

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You really don't need tips here, just mind you the Hell weapon is not infinite and if you run out of ammo in the first battle that means you fucked up.Otherwise, there's a bug with Starlight's zoom which is related to EXU's own zoom system that tracks distance and HP/Names - it lags in large areas MASSIVELY, specifically when looking to z-axis directions. X/Y axis are fine.

StalwartUK wrote:Cool, currently on map 10 so perfect timing!

So far it's been quite the experience, quite amazing to see what you can pull off with this 19 year old game and I'm running this with the hi-res textures and the HD skins mutator, which probably adds to the insanity.

Map 10 is the most technically demanding map overall but the whole buildup to the boss is so worth it. I wanted to have the full castle top to be explorable but the game usually crashes if you look at the whole EFNP redux area from afar.

Hope you enjoy map 11!

Thank you all guys, hope I can hear some mini reviews and opinions sometime!

Music: 400MB, 21 tracks correct? there was a little hiccup when I extracted this, I don't think it affected the success of the extraction but just checking

Nali: Magic or Telekinesis

Waffnuffly wrote:It's tarydium-doped smoothies. Drunk by the player, I mean. The player is tripping balls. The whole game actually takes place in a large city and the player thinks he's on an alien world.

Thanks for clarifying that, extracted again and this time there's everything! (holy shit 560MB of music!)

Nali: Magic or Telekinesis

Waffnuffly wrote:It's tarydium-doped smoothies. Drunk by the player, I mean. The player is tripping balls. The whole game actually takes place in a large city and the player thinks he's on an alien world.